Functionalism, History of

Richard Münch, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany

� 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract

Starting with a brief description of the essential features of functionalism in the social sciences, the article provides an
overview of the major contributions to its development. Comte and Spencer shaped the origins of functionalism in the
nineteenth century by conceptualizing society as an organism. Durkheim continued along this line in Sociology. Radcliff-
Brown and Malinowski did so in Social Anthropology. Merton, Davis, Moore, and Parsons made functionalism the domi-
nant paradigm of post–World War II sociology. Despite its decline in the 1960s, there has been a significant revival of the
paradigm since the 1980s with neofunctionalism and Luhmann’s systems theory.

Functionalism is a method of social science analysis, which
has its roots in nineteenth-century social thought. It origi-
nated from the application of methods from biology, the
rising science at that time, to the analysis of society. Three
features are characteristic of this orientation toward biology:
society is more or less strictly conceived as an organism; its
development is understood as an evolutionary process;
special attention is given to the relationship between the parts
and the whole constituted by them, particularly to functions
that have to be fulfilled by the parts for the working of the
whole. The parts are institutions such as forms of family life,
economic production, government, and religion as well as the
organizational embodiments of such institutions: families,
enterprises, governmental bodies, and churches. The institu-
tions are binding rules, which regulate the activities and
relationships between people. The functions are, for example,
biological reproduction for the family, generating resources
and allocating them to needs for economic production,
binding decisions for the collectivity for the government, or
the production of meaning for religion. It is assumed that, for
its simple continuation, society needs the subserving of
such functions by institutions and their organizational
embodiments.
Origins of Functionalism: Auguste Comte and Herbert
Spencer
It was the fundamental change from traditional agrarian to
modern industrial society, which constituted the background
for the rise of functionalism in nineteenth-century social
thought, particularly in the work of Auguste Comte and Her-
bert Spencer. In his Social Statics, Comte conceived of society as
a whole which, in its ideal state, is kept in perfect harmony by
the balanced contribution of its constituent parts to its working
in the process of fulfilling their specific functions. In his Social
Dynamics, he conceptualized social change as an evolutionary
process from lower to higher forms of societal organization.
Because he expected science to bring about the perfect organi-
zation of social life in its final stage in modernity, he couched
the evolutionary process in terms of the evolution of thinking
from the theological to the metaphysical to the positive stage
shaped by ‘positive’ science.
The other major source of functionalism in nineteenth-
century social thought next to Comte is Herbert Spencer
(1908). Though he shared the adoption of biological and
evolutionary thought with Comte, he demarcated his approach
explicitly from Comte’s by conceiving society and social
development not as a matter of ideas, but as a matter of
objective things, namely, the behavior of human individuals.
The major process in the development of society is differenti-
ation; functions become more numerous and the tendency is
that a function is fulfilled by one specific institution specialized
in it. The more society grows in size, the more differentiated
will be its functions and corresponding institutions. The first
differentiation occurs between regulative, sustaining, and
distributive functions. The corresponding institutions are
government, economy, and the infrastructure of channels for
transport and communication. With the differentiation of
functions and institutions, society works like higher organisms,
it becomes more heterogeneous, definite in the demarcation of
institutions, and integrated; group life is transformed from the
coexistence of groups with the same structure without coher-
ence between them (families, clans) to greater heterogeneity
but also greater coherence between groups. The evolution of
social life goes from incoherent homogeneity to coherent
heterogeneity in the process of specialization and growing
division of labor.
The Classical Framing of Functionalism: Emile
Durkheim
Among the great classical founders of sociology at the turn
from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, it is Emile
Durkheim (1893/1973a, 1895/1973b, 1912/1968) who
made a distinctive contribution to functionalism as a method
of sociological analysis. From Comte he borrowed the holistic
view of society, from Spencer the idea that the growing division
of labor is a core feature of social evolution. In his Rules of the
Sociological Method, Durkheim made a clear distinction between
functional and causal analysis and a clear statement that every
functional analysis needs to be complemented by causal
analysis. He argues that the utility of an institution in serving
a need for individuals or in performing a function for society
does not suffice to explain its existence.

536 International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 9 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.03183-4

In his study on The Division of Labor in Society, Durkheim
points out that specialization and division of labor are tools for
the self-preservation of the individual and the society and
for integrating society. They help to overcome the struggle for
scarce resources. This struggle is caused by the increasing
material and dynamic density that results from population
growth and the extending as well as denser weaving of ways
and means of transport and communication. Nevertheless,
serving self-preservation and social integration do not produce
specialization and the division of labor by themselves. In
Durkheim’s eyes, this functional explanation of specialization
and division of labor needs a complementation by causal
analysis. In doing so, he looks for forces, which lead the
selection of behavior and individuals in the direction of
increasing labor division. He says that emigration, suicide, and
crime would have been other possible solutions of the
problem besides labor division. He explains the fact that they
have not been selected to the same extent by the greater
resistance called for by them. The bonds to one’s home
country work against emigration, the bonds to one’s life
against suicide, the sympathy for our fellows prevents us from
committing a crime. They are on average stronger and more
resistant feelings than the habits, which could prevent us from
further specialization. The latter had to give way to the
pressure toward specialization. In doing so, Durkheim points
out the ‘functional equivalents’, which would serve self-
preservation and then gives answers to the question as to the
forces that lead human behavior in the direction of one of
them. This is his complementation of functional analysis by
causal explanation in his study on the division of labor.
In his later work on The Elementary Forms of Religious Life,
Durkheim draws on anthropological studies on the Australian
aborigines. Here he makes use of his idea of the circular link
between cause and functional effect in the study of ritual
practices in which the sacred is strengthened in distinction to
the profane and in which the community is regularly becoming
conscious of itself. We have a circular link here. People gather
because they want to influence the demonic powers positively
for practical reasons of a good harvest or hunt, their willingness
to come together is, however, supported by their feeling of
belongingness and solidarity, which is again strengthened by
the ritual itself.
A Paradigm of Functional Analysis: Robert K. Merton
Durkheim’s analysis of tribal societies was continued in the
anthropological study of tribal societies, particularly by the
leading British anthropologists, Alfred R. Raddcliffe-Brown and
Bronislaw Malinowski. According to Malinowski (1948), every
social phenomenon has to be explained by an indispensable
function it fulfills not only for the whole of society, but also
for the human individual: biological needs for food, shelter,
and reproduction, psychological needs for support, needs for
maintaining culture and social organization. Institutions of
exchange, decision making, social control, and education
should be explained by such functions. Radcliffe-Brown
(1952) criticized Malinowski’s emphatic functionalism and
preferred to call his approach structuralism. He did not
accept the presumption that every social phenomenon exists
Functionalism, History of 537
because of a necessary function it fulfills. In his view, the
unity of society was not a postulate claimed for every society,
but a hypothesis that allowed a functional explanation of
a social phenomenon by its contribution to the persistence
of society. One of his examples is the explanation of lineage
systems by the fact that they help to avoid conflicts about
property rights after the death of property holders and thus
contribute to the maintenance of solidarity. It is obvious that
such an explanation is nevertheless insufficient in the light of
Durkheim’s methodological objections against purely
functional explanations.
At this point, it is quite reasonable to turn to the detailed
methodological analysis of functionalism contributed by
Robert K. Merton (1949/1968) in his paradigm of functional
analysis. Merton points out three postulates of functionalism,
which all have to be doubted in his eyes: (1) Functional unity
postulates that society is one consistent whole and every
phenomenon contributes to its working and that there is no
division of society into parts with conflicting needs. (2)
Universal functionalism postulates that every social phenom-
enon performs a positive function for the whole of society. (3)
Functional indispensability postulates that every social
phenomenon performs an indispensable function for the
whole of society and cannot be replaced by some other
phenomenon. Merton says that all three postulates are unful-
filled by concrete societies, particularly by modern societies, so
that functional explanations of social phenomena cannot be
based on them.
Instead, Merton introduced a more realistic paradigm of
functional analysis with a set of 12 requirements: (1) Only
standardized social phenomena like institutions should be
analyzed with regard to their functions. (2) Subjective dispo-
sitions of actors and objective consequences of their action in
social practices should be outlined and distinguished. (3)
Positive, negative (dysfunctional), and neutral effects of stan-
dardized practices should be discerned. (4) The units for which
an item fulfills a function have to be exactly determined. (5) The
functional requirements for maintaining a system have to be
denoted. (6) The mechanism of their fulfillment must be
specified. (7) The functional alternatives have to be enumer-
ated. (8) The structural context needs description regarding the
narrowing down of space for functional alternatives. (9)
Dysfunctions have to be detected and analyzed with regard to
effecting stress and strain with resulting pressures for change.
(10) The functional explanations should be validated in
comparative research. (11) Functional analysis must be neutral
in ideological terms. (12) Functional analysis of a social prac-
tice needs to include (a) the location of participants in the social
structure; (b) alternative modes of behavior excluded by the
pattern; (c) the emotive and cognitive meaning of the pattern
for the participants; (d) a distinction between motivation and
objective behavior; and (e) behavioral regularities that are part
of the pattern but are not recognized by the participants.
A good example of Merton’s idea is his functional expla-
nation of the political machine by the various needs it fulfills
for the whole of society and for a variety of groups. As an
informal network with a boss at its head, it concentrates power
and thus makes political decisions possible in the American
political system of checks and balances; it also serves as
a vehicle of helping the poor and weak, legitimate and
538 Functionalism, History of
illegitimate business and provides channels for upward
mobility. Thus the political machine becomes stabilized
because – according to Merton’s requirement – the positive
functions outweigh the dysfunctions by far.
Functional Prerequisites and Social Stratification:
Aberle et al. and Davis and Moore
In the 1940s and 1950s, functionalism achieved to the position
of the dominant paradigm of sociological analysis under the
name of “structural functionalism”. The investigative strategy
of structural functionalism was the discovery of the functions,
which have to be fulfilled in order to secure the survival of
society and the discovery of the corresponding structures
serving these functions (Aberle et al., 1950/1967). Another
representative contribution to structural functionalism is the
functional theory of social stratification outlined by Kingsley
Davis and Wilbert E. Moore (1945) in their much debated
article ‘Some Principles of Social Stratification’ published in the
American Sociological Review. Davis and Moore argue that every
society needs a system of social stratification for the following
reasons: (1) The members of the society share common views
on the importance of a certain position needed for the provi-
sion of public and private goods and services. (2) To perform
the corresponding roles, more or less talent, training and/or
effort is required. (3) Thus, positions can be more or less
important, the personnel needed for filling the positions more
or less scarce. The greater the importance and scarcity, the
greater the reward. The result is that positions are always
stratified. The representative criticism of this functional theory
of stratification was formulated by Melvin M. Tumin (1953) in
an article published in the American Sociological Review 8 years
later. It is couched in terms of conflict theory: The class structure
is based on the power of the dominant class, which defines the
importance of positions; its major effect is the differentiation of
access to the higher positions according to socialization
advantages and training of the offspring originating from the
dominant class. Rather than contributing to the working and
integration of society, the stratification system has disruptive
effects so that society is not stabilized by value consensus and
stratification, but by the application of power.
Functionalism as an Attempt at Synthesis:
From Talcott Parsons’ Structural Functionalism
to Neofunctionalism
Five years earlier than Davis and Moore, in 1940, Talcott
Parsons published another functional theory of social strati-
fication, which he revised twice, in 1954 and 1975 (Parsons,
1954a,b, 1977). In the perspective developed by Parsons,
social stratification has to be explained by the interaction of
dynamic and controlling forces of action, interests and power
on the one hand, and solidarities and cultural values on the
other. Interests and power determine the access to positions
and the enforcement of positional differences and outcomes,
particularistic solidarities of family and lineage explain the
inertia of class structures, because of the tendency of families
to secure their offspring remaining in the same class position.
The legitimacy of the stratification system in distinction to its
factual production and reproduction is, however, an effect of
the consensus on a grading scale according to which prestige is
attributed to positions. Only in as much as such a consensus
on a grading scale is achieved will the system of stratification
be accepted as legitimate. Otherwise, the definition of the
importance of positions and the access to them will be
a matter of the war of all against all. In general terms, this is
the problem of double contingency.
Other than Merton’s deliberate plea for empirical middle
range theories, Parsons’ program was analytical grand
theory. Merton stood for empirical functionalism, Parsons for
analytical functionalism (Parsons, 1951). He introduced his
four-function paradigm as an analytical instrument of
analyzing structures as well as dynamic processes with
regard to abstract functions (Parsons, 1966, 1967, 1978;
Parsons and Smelser, 1956). By cross tabulating the
instrumental/consummatory and the internal/external
orientation of action, he defined four abstract functions:
instrumental/external: adaptation (A), consummatory/
external: goal attainment (G), consummatory/internal:
integration (I), and instrumental/internal: latent pattern
maintenance (L). For further differentiation, Parsons
distinguishes three levels of applying the four-function
scheme: (1) social system: economic (A), political (G),
community (I), and fiduciary (L) system; (2) general action
system: behavioral (A), personality (G), social (I), and
cultural (L) system; and (3) human condition:
physicochemical (A), organic (G), action (I), and telic (L)
system. Further differentiation results from the application
of the scheme to one of the subsystems. After having
developed an analytical action theory in his first work of
1937, The Structure of Social Action (Parsons, 1937/1968),
Parsons established structural functionalism as a link
between analytical functionalism and systems theory in The
Social System in the early 1950s, and extended that link with
the introduction of his theory of generalized media of
interchange (money (A), political power (G), influence (I),
and value commitments (L) for the social system) and his
theory of evolution as instruments for the analysis of
dynamic processes of inflation and deflation and social
change in the 1960s. With his turn to functionalism,
systems, media and evolutionary theory he did, however,
not give up the core position of his early action theory: the
idea that social order emerges from the interaction between
controlling and dynamizing forces. In his systems theory, he
couched this idea in the double cybernetic hierarchy of
conditions and controls. From (L) to (A) energy and
dynamics in the system increase, while information and
control decrease, and vice versa.
Looking at one analytical level, the social system, this
system is composed of subsystems, which fulfill their specific
functions (A G I L) with specific structures (markets (A),
authority (G), association (I), and communication (L)) and
specific media of interchange. They build an interrelated set of
systems with in- and output processes of factors and products
processed by the circulation of the media from one system to
the other (interpenetration). Crises in the working of the
systems can be analyzed as inflation–deflation spirals of
the media involved.

In his theory of evolution, Parsons tries to point out the
evolutionary advantage of specific institutions. Religion,
communication by language, social organization through
kinship and technology are the first conditions of building
human societies. A breakthrough to higher forms of social
organization is realized by social stratification according to
prestige based on achievement instead of ascription by origin.
The rigidity of kinship systems is pushed back in this way. A
further step forward is the replacement of tradition by cultural
legitimation through general values. The developmental stage of
a modern society is realized by the establishment of bureaucratic
organizations, markets and money, universalistic norms and
democratic association. In two volumes, he outlines the evolu-
tionary process in four dimensions according to his AGIL
scheme: adaptive upgrading (A), structural differentiation (G),
inclusion (I), and value generalization (L).
Evolutionary achievements require breakthroughs in all
four dimensions. He points out such breakthroughs in his
analysis of primitive societies, archaic societies (Egypt and
Mesopotamia), intermediate historic empires (China, India,
Islamic, and Roman empires), seedbed societies (Israel,
Greece), and, finally, the system of modern societies from
ancient cultural roots via the Renaissance and the Reforma-
tion to the Enlightenment and the building of modern citi-
zenship, state and capitalism. The major modern
breakthroughs are the industrial, the democratic, the educa-
tional, and eventually the ‘expressive’ revolution of the 1960s
and 1970s (Parsons, 1966, 1967, 1971).
According to his position that social order always has to
reside in some form of consensus and solidarity in order to avoid
an unlimited power struggle, Parsons lays special emphasis on
the development of citizenship as a core of a modern ‘societal
community’. It is a modern form of community, which has the
greatest potential for inclusion, it associates people of the most
varied ethnic and cultural origins. In this respect, it is the
cornerstone of modern social organization. He sees the society of
the United States farther developed in this respect than the
ethnically more homogeneous European welfare states (Parsons,
2007). The modern community of citizens is the core, which is
complemented by a capitalist economy; democratic govern-
ment; and universalistic institutions of education, science,
professional work, and voluntary religious association. This is
the abstract path of sociocultural evolution, which has to be
distinguished from concrete historical development that can
more or less deviate from this path. There is particularly always
the danger of fundamentalist movements against modernity,
which originate from the severe tensions caused by the evolution
of modern forms of social organization. For Parsons, fascism as
well as communism were such fundamentalist reactions to
modernity, which have, however, no chance of long-enduring
stabilization in his eyes. Therefore, he expected that the Soviet
system would crumble some time, an expectation grounded in
‘abstract’ evolutionary theory, which turned out to be very
‘realistic’ eventually.
Criticism of Functionalism
The dominant role of functionalism during the 1950s and
into the 1960s provoked criticism pointing out its weaknesses
Functionalism, History of 539
and aiming at new approaches to study society. In the 1950s
already, Lewis Coser (1956) and Ralf Dahrendorf (1958a,b)
objected to functionalism with regard to its inadequate
understanding of social conflict. Drawing on Georg Simmel,
Coser emphasized that social conflict is not only disruptive in
its effects, but – under certain specific conditions – also meets
functions of maintaining social relations and integrating
society. He developed a kind of conflict functionalism.
There are conditions that mitigate conflicts such as chances
of expressing frustration openly, a greater number of
alternatives for action, little frustration before a conflict
becomes evident, exclusion of emotional and ideological
motives, and a focus on the substantial objects of conflict
and stable social relations. External conflicts with other
groups strengthen the groups’ identity and cohesion, but
also coerce nonconforming members of the group. Also,
external conflicts contribute to stabilizing and strengthening
relations between the conflicting individuals or groups.
Ralf Dahrendorf criticized functionalism’s one-sided focus
on consensus, social integration and social stability. He did
not want to abandon the functionalist view of society, but
wanted to complement it with a special emphasis on
constraint, conflict, and change. As he puts it, functionalism
considers society as a relatively stable and well integrated
configuration of elements, all of which contribute to its
functioning, while society is founded on consensus. From
the complementary point of view of conflict theory, society
is based on the constraint exercised by some of its members
on the other members, and it is in continuous change
entailing always conflict. All its elements contribute to its
change. George Homans (1961, 1964) challenged
functionalism’s holistic approach to study society and to
focus on institutions, structures, and functions of the society
at large and the corresponding search for “grand theory”
with a plea for methodological individualism. He argued for
“bringing men back in” and for a sociological explanation
based on psychological laws that he derived from
behavioristic learning psychology. Any explanation of social
institutions and social change is required to trace them back
to the actions of human individuals. For example, the
stability or change of an institution like the appearing of
students in class at 8 a.m. every morning of a school day
resides in the students’ motivation to appear or not appear
in class at that time every morning of a school day. Homans
initiated a kind of micro-sociological revolution against
functionalism (Alexander, 1987: pp. 156–280). Besides
Homans’ psychologically based theory of human behavior,
other parts of this revolution included symbolic
interactionism as it was advanced by Herbert Blumer (1969)
based on George Herbert Mead’s social behaviorism;
Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical theory of interpersonal
communication; and Harold Garfinkel’s studies in
ethnomethodology. These approaches were addressing the
construction of social order in social interaction. They all
shared Denis Wrong’s (1961) criticism of Parsons’
“oversocialized conception of man”. Wrong emphasized
that members of social groups, communities, organizations
or societies are not completely socialized to the extent that
their action is nothing but role-taking and conformity to
norms and role expectations. Socialization itself is
540 Functionalism, History of
a conflictual process and is incomplete so that there is always
space for deviation from established norms and for change of
social order. From the point of view of symbolic
interactionism, any social order is not given once and for
all, but has to be negotiated and renegotiated time and
again in everyday interaction (Strauss, 1978).
From the macro-sociological perspective, it was first of all
C. Wright Mills (1956, 1959) who challenged what the
critiques called functionalism’s preoccupation with
consensus, order and stability and the understanding of
society as a widely harmonious whole composed of
interdependent parts that all contribute to its functioning.
From Mills’ point of view, this preoccupation with
consensus, order and stability made functionalists unable to
address power, conflict and constraint in a realistic way.
This was particularly true for the functionalist perspective
on American society. As Mills elaborated in his widely
received study The Power Elite, American society underwent
a major change after World War II and in the wake of the
Cold War between East and West. Up to that time, the
business elite was most influential in shaping society and
politics. With the Cold War, the federal government’s
leadership became more important along with the military
leaders. Mills saw American society widely ruled by what he
called the military–industrial complex, that is a close
network of leaders from military and big business and their
involvement in the federal government. In Parsons’ (1960:
pp. 206–247) eyes, Mills exaggerated the connections
between military, business, and government and
underestimated the functional differentiation of society. For
Parsons, military, business, and government fulfill specific
functions for society. Their leaders play a crucial role in
meeting these functions, but do not unite in a closed elite
that rules society in its particularistic interest.
Here is the crucial point at which Alvin Gouldner’s (1970)
critique of Parsonian functionalism set in. While the critiques
mentioned so far were directed against functionalism in a still
dominating position, Gouldner launched his criticism at
a time at which the decline of the paradigm was well under
way. His book The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology was
written as an account of this decline and put forward a plea for
a reflexive and a radical sociology. Gouldner elaborated the
similarity of Parsonian functionalism to Plato’s philosophy of
a partially good world, which can be improved by moving
toward an ideal order where every part of it is in equilibrium
with all other parts and contributes to the functioning of the
whole. Society is a whole composed of interdependent parts
that all contribute to its functioning. By looking at society in
this way, functionalism is conservative in the same way as
Plato’s philosophy was. That means, even if it does not
directly aim at conserving a concretely existing society and its
institutions, it has to look at it in a way so that practices and
institutions are identified in their functional contribution to
society and its order. Even if problematical phenomena can
always be observed in society, they can only be conceived as
deficient, which calls for improvement in order to meet the
required function for society. Thus the functionalist perspec-
tive may see deviance, conflict, and disorganization in society
but will never open the observer’s eyes for the deeper causes of
these phenomena and will always search for remedies that
help to improve given institutions so that the existing society
arrives a better shape and greater balance. This conservatism
inherent in functionalism implies its adaptation to society as
it exists. It may fulfill this conservative ‘function’ in a liberal
capitalist society, in a society characterized by capitalism’s
embeddedness in democracy and welfare institutions and
even a socialist society. Against this conservative character of
functionalism, Gouldner argues for a reflexive sociology that
reveals the deeper roots of contemporary tensions and
conflicts in society and a radical sociology that opens up ways
toward a more profound change of society and toward a better
future.
Marxism became a major stream of radical sociology in the
1970s. The revitalization of Marxism at that time entailed,
however, a remarkable bloom of functionalist thinking in its
broader terms. Social theory inspired by Marx had to find an
answer to the question as to why capitalism did not break
down in the West as postulated by Marx in his study on the
rise and future decline of capitalism. The widespread answer
to this question was the rise of stabilizing institutions like
science and technology, social partnership between industrial
federations and trade unions and government interventions
in the economy aiming at minimizing its disruptive effects. It
was Jon Elster (1982) who addressed exactly this turn of
Marxism to a kind of functionalist method of analysis. Elster
referred to the logical incorrectness of functionalist explana-
tions as already identified by Carl G. Hempel from a meth-
odological point of view. As he emphasized, it is logically
impossible to explain the existence or rise of an institution by
the function it fulfills for society. Against the preoccupation of
functionalism with methodological holism – the whole is
more than its constituent parts – he argued in favor of
methodological individualism. The emergence and existence
of institutions have to be explained by the motives and
actions of the major actors who have created them or are
maintaining them even against resistance at a certain time
in history. Elster identifies Christian theodicies as a major
root of functionalism reaching their summit in Leibniz’s
teaching that everything happening in this world will end
up as good for the human individual. For him, Bernhard de
Mandeville’s teaching that private vices produce public
benefits constitutes a secular version of Christian theodicy.
Adam Smith’s statement that some invisible hand turns
private utility maximization into public wealth on the
market also belongs to this category of functionalist
reasoning. Elster considers this type of reasoning as a weak
functional paradigm which assumes that some behavioral
pattern has beneficial consequences for some social unit,
but is unintended and not recognized as such by the
beneficiaries (Elster, 1982: p. 454). Elster also identifies
a main functional paradigm that explains the existence of an
institution or behavioral pattern by referring to their latent
functions for a social unit, and a strong functional
paradigm, which assumes that all institutions and
behavioral patterns can be explained by a function they
fulfill for a social unit. Elster supplies a variety of examples
for these types of functional explanations in the social
sciences, particularly in Marxism. They all share the
assumption of some objective teleology in social processes
such as Hegel’s idea that history develops dialectically in the

direction of reality coming closer to reason, that means the
real turns out to be the reasonable. Elster gives a variety of
examples of this kind of functionalist reasoning and he
shows that not only functionalism in mainstream sociology
adheres to this type of reasoning, but also, very broadly,
Marxism from its very beginning in Marx’s writings
themselves through to the renewal of Marxism in the 1970s
in particular. One example is Marx’s explanation of the
Bonapartist regime that deprives the bourgeoisie of exerting
political power directly in order to protect it from self-
destruction so that it maintains its dominant position in
society in the long run (Elster, 1982: p. 458). Elster
demonstrates furthermore that many Marxist analyses
explain what exists by its function for maintaining
capitalism and serving the capitalist class. The state in
whatever form it may exist is explained by its function for
capitalism and the capitalist class. As Elster points out, all
these functional explanations are deeply flawed, as they
simply cannot explain what they want to explain. There are
always functional alternatives and the attributed function
for a social unit does not bring about an institution or
behavioral pattern by itself. For Elster, there is no other way
than looking at the actors and their motives in creating and
maintaining institutions and behavioral patterns. This is
what methodological individualism requires from
sociological explanation.
Functionalism and Modern Systems Theory
The dominant role played by Parsonian functionalism in the
1950s provoked counter-movements, which concentrated
mostly on some particular aspect of social organization,
which was relativized within the very general Parsonian
scheme. The need for revitalizing the Parsonian approach has
indeed called for a new movement, which aims at continuing
with the general program of Parsons on the contemporary
level of development. This is the movement of neo-
functionalism, which arose in the 1980s. Neofunctionalism
tries to advance the Parsonian legacy by way of learning from
new developments in social theory and social research, for
example from advancements provided by Clifford Geertz or
Jürgen Habermas. This new movement has contributed fresh
interpretations of Parsons’ work along with a new reading of
the classics, studies on civil society and public discourse, on
the evolution of the culture of modernity, on communication
society, European integration and globalization (Alexander,
1982/83, 1998, 2006; Münch, 2010, 1987/2011, 2012).
A comprehensive renewal of functionalism has been
undertaken by Niklas Luhmann (1970, 1984, 1997). He, too,
combines functionalism with systems, media, and evolu-
tionary theory. In his early phase of theory-building,
Luhmann introduced a turn from structural-functional to
functional-structural systems theory. To justify this turn, he
claims that the question of function has to be posed in
a more fundamental way. Before we ask for the structures of
systems, which have to fulfill certain functions, we should
raise the question as to which function is served by systems
building as such. What is the problem solved by systems
building? This is how he asks his question. His answer is:
Functionalism, History of 541
world complexity, which needs reduction so that it can be
handled. Systems just perform this function of reducing
world complexity.
In his second phase of theory building, Luhmann under-
took another turn of his functionalist systems theory: the
conceptualization of social systems as autopoietic, self-
referential systems. Because there is always the danger of too
much complexity, the major problem is systems building
and the continued maintenance of systems boundaries,
which are boundaries of meaning. Autopoiesis is a form of
systemic operation, which guarantees the maintenance of
boundaries and, at the same time, allows for maximum
absorption of environmental complexity. An autopoietic
system is operationally closed, but open to any kind of
complexity in the environment. Operational closure is
guaranteed by a binary code according to which any kind of
environmental complexity is processed. The concrete
processing is organized by a system’s program. Special links
to other systems in the environment are stabilized by
structural coupling. Generalized media of communication
allow for most flexible forms of systemic processing: money,
power, law, and love, for example. Social systems are built
up by communication, they originate from that and
continue to exist as long as communication takes place
according to the established code. Communication consists
of three elements: information, message, and interpretation.
An autopoietic system produces and reproduces all its
elements – communication – by itself, i.e., by systemic
communication, but it makes use of environmental
complexity. It does not take inputs from the environment to
transform them into outputs, but receives impulses from the
environment to which it shows more or less response. The
system observes events in the environment and absorbs
them according to its own code and program. Problems of
maladaptation to the environment can be discovered by
second-order observation, which is self-observation and self-
description.
Luhmann distinguishes three levels of social systems: inter-
action systems, organizational systems, and societal systems.
According to his theory of evolution, more complex societal
systems evolve by variation, selection, and stabilization. There
are three (later: four) stages of societal evolution, which are
defined by the form of differentiation of systems: segmentary,
estate (later: center/periphery), and functional differentiation.
Modern societies are functionally differentiated and no
longer have a center. The economic, political, legal, science,
educational, and arts systems are more and more differenti-
ated on a world scale and thus transcend their centering
around a societal community and/or a state. Thus the nation-
state societies are transitional stages on the way to world
society. Paying vs. not paying, having power vs. having no
power, right vs. wrong, true vs. false are the binary codes of the
economy, polity, law, and science systems. The evolutionary
process works toward the establishment of functionally
differentiated systems on a world scale, which are linked by
structural coupling and by mutually stabilizing coevolution.
Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory attracted great interest,
particularly in the 1970 and 1980s, and above all in Germany.
Many younger sociologists adopted his paradigm of auto-
poietically operating systems. Also, he provoked some
542 Functionalism, History of
controversy as to the best approach to social theory. It was
Jürgen Habermas, working in the tradition of critical theory,
who launched the most thoroughgoing criticism against
systems theory in his critique of functionalist reason. He
borrowed from Parsons’s and Luhmann’s works to construct
a twofold social theory, a theory of communicative action that
focused on the interaction between systems and life-world
(Habermas, 1981). In reference to Marx’s concept of
alienation in modern capitalism, he developed the thesis of
the colonization of the life-world of communicative
relationships between people by the systems of economy,
politics, bureaucracy and law.
Future Need for Functionalism
The question finally is: What will be the future of function-
alism after its renewal by neofunctionalism and by Luh-
mann’s functionalist systems theory? Whatever the
movements against functionalism have contributed to our
knowledge, we cannot say that they can replace the insights of
functionalism completely. They have merely emphasized
some particular aspect of social reality and some particular
question. But they did neither raise nor answer the questions
posed by functionalism from Comte and Spencer to Parsons
and Luhmann. Because their questions are still legitimate,
there is still a place for functionalist theorizing, whatever form
it might take in the future.
See also: AGIL, History of; Anthropology, History of;
Community and Society: History of the Concepts; Discipline
Formation in the Social Sciences; Division of Labor: History of
the Concept; Modernity: History of the Concept; Progress:
History of the Concept; Schools in the Social and Behavioral
Sciences: Concepts and Historical Relevance; Society and
People: History of the Concept; Sociology, History of;
Solidarity: History of the Concept.
Bibliography
Aberle, D.F., et al., 1950/1967. The functional prerequisites of a society. In:
Demerath, N., Peterson, R. (Eds.), System, Change and Conflict. Free Press,
New York, pp. 317–331.
Alexander, J.C., 1982/83. Theoretical Logic in Sociology, 6 vols. University of
California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA.
Alexander, J.C., 1987. Twenty Lectures. Sociological Theory since World War II.
Columbia University Press, New York.
Alexander, J.C., 1998. Neofunctionalism and After. Blackwell, Oxford.
Alexander, J.C., 2006. The Civil Sphere. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Blumer, H., 1969. Symbolic Interactionism. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Comte, A., 1830–42/1969. Cours de philosophie positive. In: Culture et Civilisation,
6 vols. Brussels (1855. The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte. Calvin
Blanchard, New York).
Coser, L., 1956. The Functions of Social Conflict. Free Press, New York.
Dahrendorf, R., 1958a. Out of utopia. Toward a reorientation of sociological analysis.
American Journal of Sociology 64, 115–127.
Dahrendorf, R., 1958b. Toward a theory of social conflict. Journal of Conflict
Resolution 2, 170–183.
Davis, K., Moore, W.E., 1945. Some principles of stratification. American Socio-
logical Review 10, 242–249.
Durkheim, E., 1893/1973a. De la division du travail social. Presses Universitaires de
France, Paris (1964. The Division of Labor in Society (G. Simpson, Trans.). Free
Press, New York).
Durkheim, E., 1895/1973b. Les règles de la méthode sociologique. Presses
Universitaires de France, Paris (1982. The Rules of Sociological Method. In:
Lukes, S. (Ed.) (W.D. Halls, Trans.). Macmillan, London).
Durkheim, E., 1912/1968. Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse. Presses
Universitaires de France, Paris (1976. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life
(J.W. Swain, Trans.). Allen & Unwin, London).
Elster, J., 1982. Marxism, functionalism and game theory. The case for methodo-
logical individualism. Theory and Society 11, 453–483.
Garfinkel, H., 1967. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Prentice Hall, Englewood
Cliffs, NJ.
Goffman, E., 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Penguin Books,
Harmondsworth.
Gouldner, A.W., 1970. The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. Heinemann, London.
Habermas, J., 1981. Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. Suhrkamp,
Frankfurt a.M.
Homans, G.C., 1961. Social Behavior. Its Elementary Forms. Harcourt, Brace, New York.
Homans, G.C., 1964. Bringing men back in. American Sociological Review 29,
809–818.
Luhmann, N., 1970. Soziologische Aufklärung, vol. 1. Westdeutscher Verlag,
Opladen (1982. The Differentiation of Society (S. Holmes, C. Larmore, Trans.).
Columbia University Press, New York).
Luhmann, N., 1984. Soziale Systeme. Grundriß einer allgemeinen Theorie. Suhr-
kamp, Frankfurt a.M.
Luhmann, N., 1997. Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, 2 vols. Suhrkamp, Frank-
furt a.M.
Malinowski, B., 1948. Magic, Science and Religion. Doubleday, New York.
Merton, R.K., 1949/1968. Manifest and Latent Functions. Social Theory and Social
Structure. Free Press, New York, 73–138.
Mills, C.W., 1956. The Power Elite. Oxford University Press, New York.
Mills, C.W., 1959. The Sociological Imagination. Oxford University Press, New York.
Münch, R., 2010. European Governmentality. The Liberal Drift of Multilevel Gover-
nance. Routledge, London and New York.
Münch, R., 1987/2011. Theory of Action. Towards a New Synthesis Going beyond
Parsons. Routledge, London and New York.
Münch, R., 2012. Inclusion and Exclusion in the Liberal Competition State. The Cult
of the Individual. Routledge, London and New York.
Parsons, T., 1937/1968. The Structure of Social Action. Free Press, Glencoe, IL.
Parsons, T., 1951. The Social System. Free Press, Glencoe, IL.
Parsons, T., 1954a. Essays in Sociological Theory. Free Press, New York, pp. 69–88.
Parsons, T., 1954b. Essays in Sociological Theory. Free Press, New York, pp. 386–439.
Parsons, T., 1960. Structure and Process in Modern Societies. Free Press, Glencoe, IL.
Parsons, T., 1966. Societies. Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives. Prentice
Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Parsons, T., 1967. Sociological Theory and Modern Society. Free Press, New York.
Parsons, T., 1971. The System of Modern Societies. Prentice Hall, Englewood
Cliffs, NJ.
Parsons, T., 1977. Social Systems and the Evolution of Action Theory. Free Press,
New York, 321–380.
Parsons, T., 1978. Action Theory and the Human Condition. Free Press, New York.
Parsons, T., 2007. American society. In: Sciortino, G. (Ed.), A Theory of the Societal
Community. Paradigm Publishers, Boulder, CO.
Parsons, T., Smelser, N.J., 1956. Economy and Society. Free Press, New York.
Radcliffe-Brown, A.R., 1952. Structure and Function in Primitive Society. Macmillan,
New York.
Spencer, H., 1908. The Principles of Sociology, 3 vols. Appleton, New York.
Strauss, A., 1978. Negotiations. Varieties, Contexts, Processes and Social Order.
Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.
Tumin, M.M., 1953. Some principles of stratification: a critical analysis. American
Sociological Review 18, 387–394.
Wrong, D., 1961. The oversocialized conception of man. American Sociological
Review 26, 183–193.
 Functioning, Disability and Health, International Classification of
Alarcos Cieza, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
Jerome E Bickenbach, Leiter Disability Policy Group, Schweizer Paraplegiker-Forschung, Nottwil, Switzerland
� 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract

The World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) constitutes a shift in how
we understand and as a society respond to disability. Conceptually, the ICF embodies an integrative understanding of the
universal human experience of disability and as a practical tool it provides a multidimensional classification and standard
language for health information. We focus here on the conceptual framework of the ICF as well as its classificatory structure
and health applications before considering issues and applications particularly relevant to the social and behavioral sciences
that are. We also contrast ICF George Engel’s ‘biopsychosocial’ model and ICF’s role in operationalizing health.

Introduction facts, the second reducing it to the social construction of

The endorsement of World Health Organization’s International
Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF)
(WHO, 2001) by the 54th World Health Assembly in 2001 rep-
resented both a deeply conceptual and practically significant
advance for natural, social, behavioral sciences in the conceptu-
alization, description, and assessment of human functioning
and disability. Conceptually, the advance arises from a
person–environment interaction model, termed as the ‘bio-
psychosocial model,’ upon which the ICF is based. This model
avoids sociological and biomedical reductionisms and
provides a starting point for a comprehensive and integrative
understanding of the universal human experience of func-
tioning and disability, and by extension the experience of
health itself (Cieza et al., 2008). Practically, the ICF provides
a multidimensional classification that constitutes both an inter-
national standard language of functioning and disability, and
the ontology of a systematic description of the total health
experience.
In this article, we will first focus on the conceptual frame-
work, or model, of the ICF before moving on to details of its
classificatory structure. That will be followed by a brief review
of the potential uses of the ICF within the health sciences,
broadly construed, and conclude with a discussion of the range
of applications that are particularly relevant to the social and
behavioral sciences. Along the way, and to avoid a natural
confusion, we will contrast the ICF model with George Engel’s
influential, and similarly named biopsychosocial model
(Engel, 1977). We will also explore the potential for the
ICF – both as a conceptual model and a classification of func-
tioning – to provide a much-needed operationalization of the
contentious notion of health.
The ICF Biopsychosocial Integrative Model
For more than 40 years models of disability have proliferated,
shedding more heat than light (for overviews see Shakespeare,
2006; Bickenbach, 2012). The debate, part science and part
politics, has pitted the ‘medical model’ against ‘the social
model’ – the first purportedly reducing disability to biomedical
a marginalized and stigmatized subpopulation. The developers
of the ICF sought to avoid both extremes, without abandoning
what is valuable in each position. The resulting model imple-
mented the following interlocking principles:
First, disability should be understood as a universal feature
of humanity, not the mark of a minority population. Disability
is not some ‘special’ attribute that some people possess and
others lack: at bottom disability arises from the blunt fact
that human life arises out of a myriad of biological functions
that are, in the end of the day, both fragile and susceptible to
less-than-optimal levels of functioning – either congenitally,
or because of disease, disorder or injury at some point in life.
Aging itself is a matter of a progressive decline in biological
functions – yet another reason to see disability as a normal
feature of living. From a policy perspective, the universality of
disability, as the disability sociologist Irving Zola recognized
25 years ago, ‘demystifies the specialness of disability,’ opening
the door to mainstreaming disability across all sectors of
society (Zola, 1989).
Disability is universal for another important reason. All bio-
logical functions, and the vast number of human actions and
behaviors that they make possible, are continuous not dichot-
omous phenomenon. Each biological function operates in the
domain of ‘more or less’ not ‘all or nothing.’ Although
some manifestations of disability are total – blindness, for
example – most are a matter of degree. Where on this
continuum between ‘complete’ functioning and ‘total lack’ of
functioning constitutes a problem (termed in the ICF, an
impairment) is a matter of judgment and susceptible to
a wide range of considerations, both personal and social. As
a consequence, the ICF is principally a classification of func-
tioning and only derivatively of problems or decrements of
functioning, that is, disability.
Finally, the experience of disability depends, not merely on
biological functions and their impact on the actions and behav-
iors that people can perform, but also and crucially on the total
context in which people live. That is, functioning and disability
are outcomes of an interaction between intrinsic features of
people (usually expressed in language of biology and
psychology) and the physical, human-built, attitudinal, social,
political, economic, and cultural environment in which people

International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 9 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.14081-4 543
544 Functioning, Disability and Health, International Classification of
live. In particular, disability arises from both biology and the
physical and social world. And again, the point at which the
operation of a biological function becomes problematic for
an individual will depend both on what the person wants to
do or behave and what is possible given the person’s environ-
ment, what is required or expected to do or behave.
To fully operationalize the principles of universality, conti-
nuity, and interaction, the ICF ‘biopsychosocial model’ is con-
structed in terms of three dimensions of functioning: body
functions and structures, activities, and participation. Prob-
lems or difficulties in these dimensions are termed impair-
ments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. For
terminological consistency, a decision was made to jointly
call these three negative dimensions ‘disability.’ To complete
the model, the two primary categories of determinants of
disability are added. First, the underlying health condition
(understood as a health state that yields problems of func-
tioning, that is, diseases, disorders, and injuries), and
secondly, contextual factors of environmental and personal
factors (the latter only mentioned and left for further develop-
ment). The environmental factors component reflect the long-
accepted account of health as being, at least in part,
determined by underlying physical and social determinants
(cf Whitehead et al., 2003). Diagrammatically, the ICF model
is represented in Figure 1.
As an example, an individual who has incurred a spinal
cord injury will, as a result, experience a range of impairments
of body function and structure, including lower body paral-
ysis, loss of bowel and bladder control, and muscle wasting.
These and other impairments will directly affect the person’s
physical capacity to perform a variety of simple and complex
activities, including walking and managing excretion, and
may well affect other very complex social activities such as
making friends or pursuing education or employment. These
activities and tasks, however, can be ameliorated to one
degree or another by changes to the person’s environment
that can facilitate activities and participation. The most
obvious is the provision of a wheelchair and other assistive
devices. Less obvious, but often more consequential, are alter-
ations to the physical environment of the school or place of
employment (in the form of elevators, adjustable desks,
personal assistance, and so on). These facilitators enable the
individual to carry out the appropriate complex tasks. Finally,
less obvious still, but also highly significant, are those social,
cultural, and political environment changes that either
Health condition
(disorder/disease)
Body Activities Participation
function and structure (Limitation) (Restriction)
(Impairment)
Environmental Personal
factors factors
Figure 1 The model of functioning and disability on which the ICF is
based.
remove attitudinal or cultural barriers such as stigma and
discrimination, or else effect those political changes that
ensure full social inclusion.
Other health conditions and impairments will yield a very
different portrait of the disability experience. For contrast, think
of mental health conditions in which the impact of attitudinal
environments, in the form of stigma, fear, and misunder-
standing, can be far more determinative of limitations in social
participation than the underlying health condition itself.
People with noticeably aberrant or nonstandard behaviors –
from simple facial tics and spasms to complex forms of
antisocial behavior – may be more limited (and hence, more
disabled) by their social environment than by their impair-
ments. Yet, some mental health problems such as depression
and extreme forms of dementia can rarely be ameliorated by
environmental facilitators (other than, perhaps, medication)
and are more dramatically determined by the underlying
health condition and resulting impairments.
Significantly, each dimension of disability is associated with
a range of appropriate social responses or interventions. At the
level of impairment, medical or rehabilitative responses are the
most appropriate, and in this sense, the ‘medical model’ is an
accurate, though partial, representation of the disability experi-
ence. At the person level of activity limitations – operationally
identified by assessing a person’s capacity to perform activities
in a given or standardize environment – the appropriate
responses will either aim to increase inherent capacity levels,
or else designed assistive technology that augments capacity
suitable for actual contexts or environments appropriate to
the individual’s needs. Finally, at the level of the person-
in-context, the paradigmatic interventions are those that either
remove environmental barriers to full participation or else put
into place environmental facilitators, or both. At this, the most
complete level of experience, the appropriate interventions
should be conceived as including, not merely the physical,
organizational, and attitudinal environmental alteration, but
also all of the social and political antecedents needed to bring
about these environment change: research, political mobiliza-
tion and lobbying, legal change, resource allocation, policy
creation and implementation, and so on. This is true whether
the environmental alteration involves putting in curb cuts for
greater wheelchair mobility, or instituting a policy of positive
action in public-sector hiring.
The ICF conceptualization of functioning and disability
identifies both underlying impairments and the overall context
or environment in which the person lives as coequal determi-
nants, with the precise configuration of influences being iden-
tifiable on a case by case basis. Unlike both the social and
the medical models, the ICF provides no account of how
disability comes about in general, but offers a relatively
theory-neutral descriptive model that is a template for explana-
tion. If a researcher wishes to show that, say of an instance of
employment restrictions for people with mobility problems,
this is primarily the product of social prejudice, or unaccom-
modating workplace environments, or the underlying impair-
ment, the researcher can rely on the ICF to collect relevant
evidence to make the case. In short, the ICF’s biopsychosocial
model rejects both the medical and the social model are reduc-
tively distorting, while preserving the germ of truth contained
in each.
 Functioning, Disability and Health, International Classification of 545

Comparing the ICF Model with Engel’s
Biopsychosocial Model
Because of the similarity in the label, it is tempting to compare
the ICF ‘biopsychosocial model of functioning and disability’
with the approach famously offered up in 1977 by psychiatrist
George Engel. As it happens, the similarity between the two
models ends with the common label, and it is instructive to
see why this is so.
In his 1977 presentation of his model, Engel’s concern was
to “provide a basis for understanding the determinants of
disease and arriving at rational treatments and patterns of
health care” (Engel, 1977, p. 196). His critique of the ‘biomed-
ical model of disease’ was in part conceptual – rejecting its
reductivism and tendency to dismiss nonbiomedical explana-
tions as irrelevant – but was for the most part clinical or thera-
peutic. His biopsychosocial model was a plea for the scientific
legitimacy of investigating nonbiological, or what we now call
social determinants of disease (see Figure 2); yet all of his argu-
ments focus on the single, purely clinical phenomena that
patients seek medical help not merely because of experienced
biological dysfunction, but also because of expectations about
what it means to be healthy, expectations that are socially,
culturally, and even linguistically, determined.
At one point, he argues that, biomedically, the state of grief
has all the hallmarks of a disease – bodily and psychological
disturbances and a predictable symptomatology and prog-
nosis. But, significantly, grief is rarely so perceived because,
socially and culturally, it is understood as a ‘problem of living’
not a disease. In short, patients acknowledge diseases only if
they perceive them as sickness, and they will only do so within
the framework provided by psychological and cultural expecta-
tions. The physician, Engel concludes, must therefore supple-
ment her or his biomedical knowledge, with skill in social
and psychological perceptiveness in all therapeutic encounters.
By contrast, the ICF does not offer any account of the deter-
minants of disease or other health conditions, and for this
reason alone the two models are radically different. But in addi-
tion, the ICF does not make any distinction between health
states and the perception or feeling of being ‘sick.’ The ICF is
a wholly objective, descriptive tool. Of course, it is evident
that a person can have a disease and not feel sick, or feel sick
and be perfectly healthy: this is a crucially important clinical
realization that, as Engel argued, a responsible physician needs
to take on board. But the distinction between health and sick-
ness is irrelevant for the description of health states and the
dimensions of functioning that can, in interaction with envi-
ronmental factors, led to disability. Description, as a precondi-
tion for assessment and measurement, is the raison d’etre of
the ICF.
Finally, it is not entirely accurate to say that the ICF utilizes
a biopsychosocial model at all, at least one that bears a family
resemblance to Engel’s model of determinants of disease. In
fact, although many of the environmental factors are social
phenomena, many if not most environmental factors are phys-
ical things in the world – weather, buildings, elevators, and
other people. It might have been better to use the terminology
now becoming more common in the disability literature and
naming the ICF model the ‘environmental’ or ‘interactive’
model.
Understanding Health in Light of the ICF
Conceptually, how might the ICF assist in our understanding of
health? Needless to say, health is a highly contested notion,
even though we have an intuitive grasp of what health is or
at least what it means to us. The technical, philosophical debate
over the definition of health – fluctuating between purely
descriptive and biological conceptions (e.g., Boorse, 1975,
1977) to normative accounts linking, or equating, health
with well-being (e.g., Nordenfeld, 1987) – is inconclusive.
WHO’s famous 1948 definition of health as “a state of
complete physical, mental and social well-being and not

Biological Psychological Social

Viruses Behaviour Class
Bacteria Beliefs Ethnicity
Hormonal Illness perceptions Education
Cerebral lesions Cognitive illusions Employment
Stress
Coping

Health condition

Figure 2 Engel’s model as depicted by Albery and Munafò (2008) is presented in the upper part. The mentioned psychosocial factors represent the
determinants of a health condition. The ICF biopsychosocial model is presented in the lower part.
546 Functioning, Disability and Health, International Classification of
merely the absence of disease or infirmity” has been roundly
criticized (e.g., Calahan, 1973) for being utterly resistant to
scientific application. Yet, though WHO has never abandon
its aspirational definition, in more technical papers it has
responded to the need for a basis for quantifying health,
without which not even the first steps in clinical quality assur-
ance, basic epidemiology, or the evaluation of public health
strategies could be taken. This approach relies on the ICF
notion of functioning.
In 2003, WHO offer a conceptual of health ‘for measure-
ment purposes’ that built on the following intuitions
(Salomon et al., 2003):
l Health is a separate concept from well-being, although it is
of intrinsic value to human beings and instrumentally
linked to other components of well-being.
l Health is comprised of states or conditions of the human
body and mind, and therefore any attempt to measure
health must include measures of body and mind functions.
l Health is an attribute of an individual person, although
aggregate measures of health may be used to describe
populations.
The second intuition is fundamental, and reflects the
influence of the ICF: at bottom health is a matter of the oper-
ation of body functions and structures, simple and complex.
It may be that we need to posit central human goals and
values in order to characterize the state of ‘good health’
(e.g., as Nordenfelt, 1987 argues). And we may need
a broader notion of health that includes the performance
of highly complex and social-constructed activities such as
are require for community life, education, or employment
(Daniels, 2007). But, as at the end of the day if health is
not rooted in functions and structures of the body and
mind, then the notion arguably lacks scientific or practical
usefulness. This, indeed, is the underlying implication of
the ICF model, and in this sense the ICF can be viewed as
providing an operationalization of the concept of health,
if not in general, then at least for scientific purposes
(see Cieza et al., 2008).
The ICF Classifications and Health Information
The ICF is more than its conceptual framework, of course.
Essentially, it is an epidemiology standard instrument, a classifi-
cation. Certainly, WHO’s own interest in developing and
promulgating the ICF is to fulfill its constitutional mandate to
provide the world with comparable health information.
WHO’s more well-known information standard classification,
International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related
Health Problems (ICD-10) (WHO, 1992), currently under
revision, is used worldwide to report causes of death for
mortality statistics. Though essential for measuring life
expectancy, ICD data did not capture the overall health status
of living populations. Missing was information about nonfatal
health outcomes, that is levels of functioning and disability
across all areas of life. The ICF was therefore developed in
order for standardized information about living with a state
health, or as it is sometimes put, the lived experience of
health. This information is proving to be essential as studies
indicate that diagnosis alone does not predict health service
needs, length of hospitalization, or level of care required. Nor
is the presence of a disease or disorder an accurate predictor
of receipt of disability benefits, work performance, return
to work potential, or likelihood of social integration. With the
decrease in significance of infectious diseases and the
burgeoning impact of population aging and the increasing
prevalence of chronic health conditions, including those like
mental health problems that do not shorten life, it was
clear that for nearly all epidemiological, health systems and
clinical care research, what is required was information about
functioning and disability.
As a practical tool, therefore, the ICF is designed to capture
the information needed, at the individual and population level,
to fully comprehend the experience of health, including the
ramifications for functioning and disability. To accomplish
this, the ICF is composed of three classifications: a classification
of body functions and structures, a classification of domains of
activity and participation, and a classification of environmental
factors. The ‘words’ of the ICF standard language are called ICF
categories. The ICF contains a total of 1454 ICF categories: 493
body functions, 310 body structures, 393 activities and partic-
ipation domains, and 258 environmental factors. These
categories are hierarchically organized in chapters with progres-
sively detailed specification. ICF chapters represent the first
level of the hierarchy and the first frame of reference for
capturing health information. Each chapter is then decom-
posed into more detailed second-level categories, which in
turn are decomposed into third- and fourth-level categories.
For example, the following is the structure of the first chapter
of Body Functions:
‘b1 Mental functions’ (first/chapter level)
‘b114 Orientation functions’ (second level)
‘b1142 Orientation to person’ (third level)
‘b11420 Orientation to self’ (fourth level).
The overall structure of the components of the ICF classifi-
cation is represented in Figure 3.
To capture the severity of an impairment, limitation, or
restriction, the ICF includes a general or generic qualifier with
a simple rating scale of five response options: 0 ¼ no impair-
ment (limitation or restriction), 1 ¼ mild, 2 ¼ moderate,
3 ¼ severe, and 4 ¼ complete impairment (limitation or restric-
tion). In the case of environmental factors, the qualifier
captures the extent to which an environmental factor is a facili-
tator or a barrier, with a total of nine response options ranging
from þ4 (complete facilitator) to 4 (complete barrier), with
a 0 value indicating neither a facilitator nor a barrier. Although
strictly speaking, the ICF is not an assessment tool but a descrip-
tive classification – a classification of ‘what to measure’ not
a guide to ‘how to measure’ – the use of qualifiers provider,
a rough guide to the extent or severity of category being used.
In practice, existing assessment instruments or patient-
reported outcomes can be mapped onto the values of the ICF
categorical coding so that information collected by these
instruments can then be compared by means of the
standardization that the ICF provides.
Given WHO’s motivation for developing the ICF, most of
the current uses of ICF are geared to serve the requirements
 Functioning, Disability and Health, International Classification of
Figure 3 The structure of the ICF.
of epidemiology and health information systems. Given the
enormous number of health and functioning assessment
tools – both generic and health condition-specific – that are
currently in use (McDowell, 2006), the ICF has become an
essential comparative standard (a kind of Rosetta stone) for
linking information collected using different instruments and
in different health and rehabilitation settings. At the highest
population level, ICF can be similarly used to compare data
collected from population health or disability surveys at the
national level, for, ultimately, more valid and reliable data
on prevalence and incidence. Given the huge range of
operationalization of disability used in such surveys around
the globe, the ICF is only available standard language for
international comparable statistics (WHO, 2011, Chapter 2).
At the level of clinical practice, the ICF is increasingly being
used as a reference framework and classification for the devel-
opment of clinical assessment and measurement instruments
(Rauch et al., 2008). Further steps toward a wider clinical appli-
cation of ICF is the development of condition-specific and
generic ‘core sets’ of ICF categories that identify those
categories that are necessary and sufficient for clinical
description of condition and treatment setting (see, e.g.,
Biering-Sorensen et al., 2006), as well as ‘linking rules’ that
enable a direct translation between existing clinical terms and
ICF categories (Cieza et al., 2005). Although there is still
work to be done to fulfill the measurement potential of ICF,
which in part depends on the development of interval scales
for particular ICF categories, based on existing clinical test
batteries and patient-orient instruments, significant progress
is being made in this direction (Stucki et al., 2008). Finally,
ICF has also proven to be a useful basis for patient education
programming (Neubert et al., 2011).
Applications of ICF to the Social and Behavioral
Sciences
Because of WHO’s original motivation for developing the ICF,
and its health information applications, most of the applica-
tions of the ICF found in the literature focus on population
547
health and clinical information applications, including assess-
ment instrumentation, principally in fields of rehabilitation
(see Mpofu and Oakland, 2010). Limit work has been done
in the application of ICF in psychology (Peterson, 2011), but
the full potential value of the ICF in this area has yet to be
surveyed. Given that most of the literature on the ‘models of
disability’ has been firmly rooted in central sociological and
social psychological traditions seeking to theorize deviance,
stigma, and minority status, it is somewhat surprising that
the ICF has generally been received with indifference. It is
undoubtedly true that, given its providence, the ICF can easily
be dismissed as a classification by and for health scientists and
epidemiologists. But that would be unfortunate since there are
at least three themes embedded in the ICF that have signifi-
cance far outside the health sphere, and would benefit from
closer scrutiny by social scientists.
Understanding Environmental Factors
Environmental factors in the ICF are determinants of disabil-
ities, coequal in significance with health conditions. Two
individuals with precisely the same health condition, and
impairments, may experience vastly different restrictions in
the lives because of features of their physical and social envi-
ronment: one may be able to be fully employed because of
workplace accommodations; the other may face such signifi-
cant social stigma that he or she is housebound. The presence
of facilitators and barriers shape individual lives and the expe-
rience of disability. Yet, other than the easy cases of the provi-
sion of assistive technology and accommodations, or social
exclusion and discrimination, we know very little about how
environmental factors interact with health states to yield decre-
ments in functioning. The ICF provides the vocabulary for
describing these factors, but the science and instrumentation
needed to assess and measure this impact is, at best, in its
infancy.
To be sure, occupational and physical therapists have long
appreciated the need for exact description of environmental
impact since many of their interventions depend on it. Yet,
while their knowledge about the direct or immediate physical
548 Functioning, Disability and Health, International Classification of
environment of assistive technology and physical accommoda-
tions may be well developed, the impact, positive or negative,
of other domains of the environment are far less so. Social atti-
tudes, both cultural and interpersonal, clearly affect how health
conditions and impairments impact people’s lives, but the
mechanisms underlying this impact are not at all well-
known. We are even more ignorant of how macrolevel
environmental changes in the form of laws and regulations,
policies, and programs impact people’s lives. While political
activism may successfully alter our laws and policies,
astonishingly, we lack the tools and indicators for identifying,
let alone measuring, the impact of policy change on the lived
experience of disability.
Universalism
Although it did not originate with the ICF, universalism is
at the heart of the paradigm shift in our understanding
of disability that the ICF offers. Conceptually, universalism
stands in contrast to strains of cultural or social relativism
that suggests that the disability experience is incommensu-
rable between members of different cultures, or indeed
between those with and those without disabilities. Politically,
universalism rejects the claim that people with disabilities are
a discreet and insular social minority group – a position that,
as a civil rights movement, the disability rights movement
successfully used to highlight inequities in the treatment of
persons with disabilities, including marginalization and
discrimination. Universalism does not downplay or ignore
these inequities; indeed it heightens the scrutiny by empha-
sizing the need to socially ‘mainstream’ disability across
policy rather than emphasis differences and ‘special’
provisions.
The sociological and political implications of treating
disability as a universal human situation, and more practi-
cally of using ICF broadly as a policy tool for employment,
education, and other social policies, have not been
adequately explored. Although the planning and architectural
program of ‘universal design’ is a dominant force in disability
advocacy, the prospect of transforming universalism as an
abstraction into concrete policy recommendations requires
a solid empirical foundation that can only be provided by
sound sociological research.
Human Rights and Justice
The ICF is, or at least was intended to be, an apolitical, even
atheoretical, tool for collecting and analyzing comparable
health and disability data. But there was also an implicit
message in the ICF model that is politically significant: the
administrative, political, and social world needs to be designed
for all people, whatever their functioning characteristics.
Political equality demands no less than the creation of social
institutions that maximize opportunities for all, given the
manifold ways that people differ. Differences that compromise
equality – either because that limit the intrinsic functional
capacity of a person, or because the physical and social environ-
ment creates unnecessary and unfair and burdens for the
individual – need to be accommodated for the sake of equality
of concern and respect.
This intuition, supported by the conceptual framework of
ICF, is often operationalized in the language of rights – legal,
civil and more generally, human rights. The United Nations’
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN,
2006) is the most recent statement of human rights in which
the universalistic message of equal concern and respect for
persons with disabilities has been enunciated. It is noteworthy
that, although the Convention does not explicitly define
disability, it characterizes it in language that is exactly parallel
to the ICF: “Persons with disabilities include those who
have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory
impairments which in interaction with various barriers may
hinder their full and effective participation in society on an
equal basis with others” (UN, 2006, Article 3). As with any
lofty statement of human rights, the Convention will remain
mere words unless given effect and implemented into
concrete policies at the national level. Increasingly, human
rights advocates have seen the need to marshal the resources
of the social sciences in order to provide the robust, empirical
evidence required to give effect to the aspirations of human
rights treaties, such as the Convention. Indeed, this
Convention explicitly requires states to “undertake to collect
appropriate information, including statistical and research
data, to enable them to formulate and implement policies to
give effect to the present Convention” 2 7 (UN, 2006, Article
31). Social science in service of human rights, and aligned
with the model of the ICF, is clearly anticipated by this
Convention as a human right that persons with disabilities
also enjoy.
Conclusions
The World Health Organizations ICF is a multifaceted
document: It is a classificatory instrument designed to
ensure comparable international information about health
and disability to serve the informational needs across the
health sciences, from public health and epidemiology to
clinical care. The ICF offers the prospect of operationalizing
the contentious notion of health in a way that maximizes
its usefulness across professions, disciplines, and social
sectors. The ICF is also a structural framework for health
and disability measurement, the basis for assessment instru-
ments, both specific and generic, and a common language
that different members of multidisciplinary teams can
used to serve the common interests of their patients. The
ICF also offers the prospect of a universal framework for
comprehensive disability policy development, including
but extending far beyond the scope of health. Both concep-
tually and practically, the ICF opens the door to a vast
range of applications and developments that are of
great potential significance to the social and behavioral
scientist.
See also: Culture as a Determinant of Mental Health; Disability:
Social and Psychological Aspects; Health Outcomes,
Assessment of; Health and Illness: Mental Representations in
Different Cultures; Health: Definitions; Illness and Dyadic
Coping; Resilience.
 Functioning, Disability and Health, International Classification of 549

Bibliography Nordenfelt, L., 1987. On the Nature of Health: An Action-theoretical Approach. Reidel,
Dordrecht.
Peterson, David B., 2011. Psychological Aspects of Functioning, Disability and Health.
Bickenbach, J.E., 2012. Ethics, Law, and Policy. In: The SAGE Reference Series on
Springer Publishing Company, New York.
Disability: Key Issues and Future Directions, vol. 4. Sage Publications, Thousand
Rauch, A., Cieza, A., Stucki, G., 2008. How to apply the international classification
Oaks, CA.
Biering-Sorensen, F., Scheuringer, M., Baumberger, M., Charlifue, S.W., Post, M.W., of Functioning, disability and health (ICF) for rehabilitation management in
et al., 2006. Developing core sets for persons with spinal cord injuries based on clinical practice. European Journal of Physical and Rehabilative Medicine 44,
329–342.
the international classification of functioning, disability and health as a way to
Salomon, Joshua A., Mathers, Colin D., Chatterji, Somnath, Sadana, Ritu,
specify functioning. Spinal Cord 44, 541–546.
Üstün, T.Bedirhan, Murray, Christopher J.L., 2003. Quantifying individual levels of
Boorse, Christopher, 1975. On the distinction between disease and illness. Philosophy
health: definitions, concepts, and measurement issues. In: Murray, Christopher
and Public Affairs 5 (1), 49–68.
J.L., Evans David, B. (Eds.), Health Systems Performance Assessment Debates,
Boorse, Christopher, 1977. Health as a theoretical concept source. Philosophy of
Science 44 (4), 542–573. Methods and Empiricism. WHO, Geneva, pp. 301–318.
Calahan, Daniel, 1973. The WHO definition of ‘health’. The Hastings Center Studies Shakespeare, T., 2006. Disability Rights and Wrongs. Routledge, London.
Stucki, G., Kostanjsek, N., Üstün, B., Cieza, A., 2008. ICF-based classification and
1 (3), 77–87.
measurement of functioning. European Journal of Physical and Rehabilitation
Cieza, A., Bickenbach, J., Chatterji, S., 2008. The ICF as a conceptual platform to specify
Medicine 44, 315–328.
and discuss health and health-related concepts. Gesundheitswesen 70, e47–56.
UN, 2006. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. G.A. Res.
Cieza, A., Geyh, S., Chatterji, S., et al., 2005. ICF linking rules: an update based on
lessons learned. Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine 37, 212–218. 61/106. http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/rights/convtexte.htm (accessed
Cieza, A., Stucki, G., 2008. The international classification of functioning, disability and 15.01.14.).
Whitehead, M., Dahlgren, G., Gilson, L., 2001. Developing the policy response
health: its development process and content validity. European Journal of Physical
to inequities in health: a global perspective. In: Evans, T., Whitehead, M.,
and Rehabilitation Medicine 44, 303–313.
Sisweixhawn, F., Bhuiya, A., Wirth, M. (Eds.), Challenging Inequities in Health Care:
Daniels, N., 2007. Just Health. Cambridge University Press, New York.
From Ethics to Action. Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 309–322.
Engel, G.L., 1977. The need for a new medical model: a challenge for biomedicine.
WHO, 1992. International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health
Science 196 (4286), 129–136.
McDowell, Ian, 2006. Measuring Health: A Guide to Rating Scales and Questionnaires, Problems, 10th revision. World Health Organization, Geneva.
third ed. Oxford University Press, New York. WHO, 2001. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health.
World Health Organization, Geneva.
Mpofu, Eilias, Oakland, Thomas (Eds.), 2010. Rehabilitaiton and Health Assessment:
WHO and the World Bank, 2011. World Report on Disability. WHO, Geneva.
Applying ICF Guidelines. Springer Publishing Company, New York.
Zola, I.K., 1989. Toward the necessary universalizing of a disability policy. Milbank
Neubert, S., Savariego, C., Stier-Jarmer, M., Cieza, A., 2011. Development of an
Quarterly 67 (Suppl. 2, Pt. 2), 401–428.
ICF-based patient education program. Patient Education and Counseling 84 (2),
e13–e17.
 Funding of Social Science, History of
Thomas König, Vienna Science and Technology Fund, Vienna, Austria
� 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract

The history of funding in the social and behavioral sciences can best be described along different types of funding regimes.
Starting with defining the term ‘funding,’ the article sets out to discuss those regimes and their emergence over the past two
hundred years. It concludes with some remarks on recent discussions on the relationship of funding and research in the social
and behavioral sciences, as well as some recent trends in their funding.

Introduction foremost, the data are simply lacking. Current OECD data sets,
for example, do not reach further back than to the early 1980s,
To state the obvious right away: “Science costs money” since the Frascati Handbook, which is the internationally
(Stephan, 2012: p. 1). As in other fields, funding has been binding categorization system for science and technology
crucial for social and behavioral sciences from the very begin- statistics, included the social sciences only from 1976 (Godin,
ning. Surprisingly, however, so far its undeniable impact on the 2005a: p. 73).
“social stratification of science” (Merton, 1988) has not Even for this rather short period, the figures displayed in
induced comprehensive attempts to investigate the relation- Table 1 should be regarded with caution. First, the four coun-
ship of the disciplines toward funding. Reflection on the topic tries were selected simply because they are the only ones where
is restricted on case studies, which will be briefly discussed numbers are detailed along scientific fields, including the social
later. sciences. Second, in the original table, every single data point
Why are the social and behavioral sciences so timid when it contained a remark about specific methodological problems.
comes to their endowment? One reason might be that there is Furthermore, it is not clear what ‘all costs’ really include,
a commonly shared uneasiness – to talk about funding might because the data collecting relies on national administrations
expose the disciplines as being compromised or manipulated. and their standards are usually varying. “Statistics on science
Any historical assessment of the social and behavioral sciences,
however, cannot rely on the assumption “that there can be any
pure form of social knowledge, uncontaminated by the situa- Table 1 Expenditures in natural sciences and engineering
and social sciences in four selected countries (in percent of total
tion in which it is created”; rather, it should be situated “in the
expenditures)
context of the longer-term historical development of the rela-
tion between knowledge production and sociopolitical insti- Australia 1981 1986 1992 1996 2002 2006
tutions” (Wagner, 2003: p. 546). The following sketch, as
fragmented as it may be, is also an attempt to contribute to Natural sciences 69.64 69.55 68.52 72.72 73.22 73.94
a history under such assumption. and engineering
Social sciences NA 18.80 21.86 19.33 20.59 20.00

Germany 1981 1985 1991 1996 2001 2006

Definition and Restrictions
Natural sciences 75.53 76.10 78.08 77.96 78.23 NA
and engineering
A working definition of funding in the social and behavioral
Social sciences 7.92 7.73 7.39 8.46 8.62 NA
sciences encompasses the allocation of resources to allow
trained personnel, for a time, conducting research on topics Sweden 1981 1985 1991 1997 2001 2006
with relevance to social and behavioral sciences, and/or
teaching those topics for training purposes. It would also Natural sciences 85.48 85.59 83.62 80.85 79.37 80.51
include accompanying activities, such as advising and dissem- and engineering
Social sciences 9.31 9.18 10.86 11.10 12.51 12.07
inating the results of the research, and fulfilling administrative
requirements. Given this broad definition, it is tempting to The USA 1981 1985 1991 1996 2001 2006
sketch a simple, straight forward history of funding based on
numbers: how many resources (valued in a standardized, Natural sciences 89.68 88.73 90.93 90.93 91.08 NA
aggregated currency) were allocated to the social and behav- and engineering
ioral sciences? If it were possible to answer this question, it Social sciences 6.96 5.25 5.68 6.23 5.98 NA
would provide a comprehensive overview about their relative Sector of performance: higher education; units for expenditure: million 2005 dollars –
worth, not only at a given time in a certain place, but also across constant prices and Prices and Purchasing Power Parties: type of costs: total (all
regions and nations; in historical perspective, it would also types of costs).
Own calculation, based on OECD, 2014. Other National R-D Expenditure by Field of
allow to see allocation fluctuations over time. Of course, such Science and by Type of Cost (Database). OECD Science, Technology and R&D
a history cannot be written, at least not for now. First and Statistics, OECD.

550 International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 9 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.03014-2

and innovation remain marked by significant methodological
limitations” (Godin, 2005b: p. 15). That being said, thinking
about the history of the social and behavioral sciences from the
perspective of their funding might still yield some interesting, if
not provocative insights.
At this point, it is helpful to distinguish also between
different types of funding. The first type concerns direct, regular
expenses, such as annual budgets for outfitting social science
departments at universities, etc. The second type concerns
direct, extraordinary funds, such as grants for social and
behavioral research projects, or onetime investments to build
up new infrastructure for teaching and research. The third type
concerns indirect (mostly), regular expenses, including costs
incurred through providing places at higher-education institu-
tions for studying social sciences at different education levels. If
the topic of funding has sparked interest at all among historians
of social sciences, they have dealt with issues related to funding
type number two. This is understandable, since this type of
funding usually is the one most explicitly stated in historical
records, as it is often the center point of concern in public
discourses. For the remainder of this contribution, too, the
main focus will be on the this type. For all its advantages that
make it prone to historical analysis, however, it should be
mentioned that, in relation to the two other types of funding,
direct, extraordinary funding has to be considered rather small
in size. If one were to discuss the public relevance of social and
behavioral sciences in general, therefore, one would have to
aim at an all-encompassing perspective.
Funding Regimes
From the point of their funding, the history of the social and
behavioral sciences is to be written not only as one of
remarkable growth in size. Over the past two hundred years, it
also witnesses an increasing number of different procedures of
allocating and accounting of funds. Those procedures can be
described as funding regimes: As such, each of them implies
a set of certain political purposes and addresses specific scien-
tific practices, even though this may not be openly declared.
Each regime’s purpose is founded on ethical principles; the
addressed scientific practices express specific epistemic expec-
tations. Over time, more and more funding regimes evolve
(with older ones usually being continued, albeit often signifi-
cantly modified), offering more and more different sorts of
funding and contributing to today’s dense fabric of the social
and behavioral sciences. Broadly, then, the history of funding
can be described along different regimes of funding, each of
which consisted of a unique mixture of ethical principles and
the epistemic expectations.
Initially, there were basically two funding regimes: direct
allocation of funds within state bureaucracies and philan-
thropic activities. Since the emergence of the social sciences is
closely related to the rise of the modern state (Wittrock, 2000),
the direct application of statistics became a crucial feature of the
then still nascent state bureaucracy. Its purpose was to describe
numerically the populace of a given territory, and it relied on the
epistemic expectation to describe, rather than to analyze, the
totality of the state’s subjects (Desrosières, 1998). Census
bureaus and statistical offices were usually directly connected to
Funding of Social Science, History of 551
state apparatuses. In the beginning, at least, funding for this
kind of activity was not yet on a regular basis.
Complementary, in all industrializing countries during the
first half of the nineteenth century, individuals with a philan-
thropic background began addressing the need to respond to
pressing social issues. Their curiosity was predominantly
satisfied through social surveys, and it was clearly stimulated by
political interest. For Friedrich Engels, “comprehending the
present state of the English proletariat” was synonymous with
his political sympathies for socialism (Engels, 1892). Others
based their ambitions “to engineer the scientific management
of the poor” on their religious beliefs, perceiving “disciplined
ordering of the self and of the social world as the only possible
bulwarks against the ever-surging sea of sin” (Yeo, 1991: p. 51).
Soon enough, however, surveying also reached the policy
arena: in England, Royal Commissions were established in
order to investigate a range of issues, from the condition in coal
mines to the traffic problems in London City. Here, surveying
was no more the concern of affluent individuals but was
intended to provide empirical evidence for public policy,
particularly in its regulatory form.
When other forms of early funding emerged, they were
based on a different set of core assumptions. As a sort of
transitory vehicle, the efforts of the German Verein fur
Socialpolitik contained the political interests of its members,
but those were nonetheless intertwined with the social
political program of the German Reich (Stremmel et al.,
2006). As the social and behavioral sciences made their way
into universities, they gained in autonomy (Shils, 1992); the
relation between ethical principles underpinning the political
purpose of funding changed, as did the epistemic expecta-
tions, but the strong connections were not lost. Nor did the
older funding regimes lose traction. The statistical offices
remained important centers of knowledge production and
politically relevant, even though their practices were no longer
considered the vanguards of research. With others, a division
of labor was taking place. The philanthropic individual con-
ducting research on his own (since its exponents were
predominantly male) in the nineteenth century was replaced
by the philanthropic foundation (based on the wealth of
a philanthropic individual, nonetheless) that gave grants and
fellowships to scholars (Bremner, 1988; Lingelbach, 2011).
The financial means of the foundations were often enormous;
their ‘scientific philanthropy’ relied on the idea that the
“development of fair, objective, expert knowledge would
enable all Americans [and eventually citizens of other nations,
TK] voluntarily to coordinate and rationalize their actions”
(Lagemann, 1992: p. 29).
As the last quote already indicates, the foundations were
partly responsible for a major spatial shift of the center of social
and behavioral sciences. From the 1920s on, that center was in
Northern America, and no longer in Europe. In particular, the
American foundations were critical in establishing what could
be called ‘big science’ in the social and behavioral sciences
through funding large projects (at least in comparison to other
budgets in those disciplines), and in establishing new research
institutions, within the US as outside (e.g., Hauptmann, 2012).
Not surprisingly, thus, the processes of disciplining and
professionalizing were strongly enforced by the foundations’
funding activities (e.g., Capshew, 1999).